The Mildura Arts Centre is a diverse cultural precinct near to the Murray River. It embraces the historic Rio Vista homestead and the attached – literally attached - art gallery and performing arts centre, including a 400-seat theatre. Plus a sculpture park.
The back story to the Mildura Arts Centre is one of convergence – the juxtaposition of a grand mansion with a significant privately-owned art collection. Then its evolution, with the modern section of the complex focussed on its art collection (and the theatre and the amenities) and the saved and restored mansion able to be viewed virtually intact - a stunning example of synergy.
A little bit of pre-history. A newspaper has been published in Mildura since 1888 – first The Mildura Irrigationist, later The Mildura Cultivator, both weeklies. In 1920 the Australian Dried Fruits Association conducted a nation-wide competition to select a brand name for Mildura-region dried fruits – the result: Sun-raysed, modified to Sunraysia. This initiative coincided with a change of newspaper ownership; and the new proprietor changed the paper’s name to The Sunraysia Daily, published thereafter four times a week. It remains thus today. There were financial problems, however, and in 1924 the business was bought by three investors, one of them being R.D. Elliott (later a Senator). [The Lanyon family acquired the Sunraysia Daily business in 1950, and operate it still.]
R.D. Elliott died in 1944, and bequeathed his art collection to Mildura City Council on condition that the Council find a suitable place to house it. That happened in 1950, and that suitable place was the Rio Vista (River View) homestead.
The story of Rio Vista’s origins is, in essence, the story of Mildura’s origins.
Alfred Deakin was one of the leading statesmen at the time of the federation of the Australian colonies in 1901. After that federation he served as Australia’s second Prime Minister, from 1903 to 1913. Prior to his term in Federal Parliament, Deakin had been a long-time member of the Victorian State legislature.
In 1884 Deakin had chaired a Royal Commission on water supply; and the next year he led a party to California to investigate irrigation and conservation schemes. He met the Chaffey brothers, George and William. Deakin was impressed by the Chaffeys’ achievements; and in 1886 George Chaffey (uninvited) came to what became Mildura to demonstrate the Chaffey methods. In June of that year Deakin introduced into the Victorian Parliament a bill to promote irrigation.
The Chaffey story is colourful beyond the rainbow. George Chaffey (1848 to 1932), described as irrigation pioneer, engineer, inventor and entrepreneur, and William Benjamin Chaffey (1856 to 1926), described as agriculturist and irrigation planner, had been instrumental in successful irrigation projects first in California, later in Canada. These projects included planned communities, concrete-piped water systems, and electric lighting. The Chaffey entrepreneurial skills had so impressed Deakin that subsequent to George’s arrival in Victoria, Deakin arranged for 101172 hectares (250000 acres) of crown land to be made available on favourable terms. William Chaffey sold their Californian interests, and joined brother George. The Mallee country selected by George Chaffey in 1886 as the Chaffeys’ first irrigation venture comprised a derelict sheep station named Mildura. [The settlement known today as Mildura was established and surveyed in 1887, with a Post Office in 1888.]
The drama and tribulations of subsequent years are detailed in the Chaffey entries in the Australian Dictionary of Biography; suffice to say that George Chaffey returned to the United States in 1897 financially broken – although later reviving his fortunes, and building an engineering career of great moment. William Chaffey remained in Mildura until his death in 1926, dying a most respected and honoured citizen.
The principal Australian legacies of the Chaffeys are the Sunraysia area, and the city of Mildura……..and William Chaffey’s home, Rio Vista.
The term “half-measures” never seems to have entered a Chaffey mindset, and Rio Vista is grand beyond the likely imagination of strangers in a hostile land, or the likely caution of strangers embarking on a costly and high-risk pioneering engineering project. But nothing ventured…..and the construction of Rio Vista began in 1889. It remained the family home until the death of William Chaffey’s widow in 1950. [Chaffey’s first wife, Harriet (Hattie), died in 1889 after the birth of their sixth child; and with his second wife, Heather (also Hattie, married 1891), Chaffey had a further six children.]
I have extracted descriptions of the house from the pamphlet provided, and these, together with my accompanying photographs, might give a sense of its opulence. Given that opulence, it is no surprise that construction extended over four years. What mystifies is that a Mildura architectural firm was in existence when Rio Vista was conceived in 1889 while Mildura itself was barely so. The red gum and Murray pine timbers were sourced from a sawmill at nearby Merbein. Other timbers: karri panelling in the upper hallway, jarrah floorboards, cedar doors in the entrance hallway; and the grand staircase of blackwood.
The floor of the entrance hallway is of Italian tessellated tiles.
The stained-glass windows were made and imported from England.
For the curious: the fountain in the front lawn is a replica, installed in 1991. The original fountain was the scene of the drowning of one of the Chaffey children in 1897, and it was then turned off. In 1936 it was gifted to the people of Mildura to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the ascension of King George V. It stands in Deakin Avenue; and the replica is flowing happily, surrounded by the Rio Vista sculpture park.
By its own website admission, the Mildura Arts Centre collection is “one of Victoria’s best kept secrets. The foundation bequest of Senator R.D. Elliott and Mrs. Hilda Elliott includes the largest single collection of paintings by Anglo-Irish artist Sir William Orpen [surely not in the world!]. Visitors are astonished to find a pastel by Edgar Degas, as well as works by Sir Frank Brangwyn and a number of important Australian artists”.
Despite the gallery's boast there didn’t, to me, seem to be many Orpen paintings on show. It seems the Orpen paintings are not presently being portrayed as the jewel in the gallery’s crown. This is not surprising, perhaps, when a bit of research indicates that Orpen’s work has been in and out of favour over the years [he was born 1878, he died 1931]. However, as recently as 2019 a previously unknown portrait by Orpen was valued, on The Antiques Roadshow, at 250000 pounds. Clearly, no gallery curator would want to vaunt the monetary value of a painting over its artistic merits, but equally clearly an enhanced dollar appraisal can do no harm to the public perception. One wonders whether the gallery at the Mildura Arts Centre is playing to its strengths!
The principal gallery space was showing an assortment of items, including the (few) aforementioned Orpen paintings. There were a couple of delightful pen and wash on paper works by Daryl Lindsay (one-time Director of the National Gallery of Victoria),
and a fine portrait of “Billy” Hughes, long-time Federal parliamentarian, including Prime Minister from 1915 to 1923, and general burr under the saddle of Australian politics. The painting is by Augustus John.
The most interesting exhibition, in the upstairs gallery space, was a group of contemporary works by Valerie Robinson, this exhibition titled Camaldulensis (eucalyptus camaldulensis is the river red gum). There is a heartfelt description of the riverine environment and vegetation, and the dominant red gum. “Infinite varieties of marks and textures made by insects, splits, rubbings, hollows, bumps, burrs, seasonal and environmental changes, the bark of this species has provided stimuli and inspiration.” These were the catalyst for Robinson’s inspiration. “Extracting colour (eco dyeing) from bark, wood, and leaves of Eucalyptus camaldulensis and applying it to paper, cotton and silk fabric” was the outworking of that inspiration.
Valerie Robinson’s works were truly admirable, but there was an unnecessary sour note. We were forbidden to take photographs, not on the long ago injunction that the artworks would be damaged by flash – what gallery bans digital photography these days? – but because the artist had requested it!
Gary Andrews
